From Darkness Comes: The Horror Box Set (73 page)

The zombie in blue
jeans was gone. Probably still there, but
gone
just the same. The press
of zombies had filled in the space between the homeless shelter and the ten-foot-by-twenty-foot
structure Ken and Dorcas were crouched on top of. There were so many of the
things in the space that it was impossible to see where one left off and another
began. It was like the mass was a single amorphous organism, squeezing every
possible cell it could into the area in search of food.

Over the booming
growl of the zombies – or maybe
between
it, since Ken couldn’t imagine
anything being heard
over
it – came the sound of tinkling glass from the
front of the shelter. A few gunshots.

Then just the
zombies. The throng that was so thick it was almost a jellied version of
humanity. Pressing. Pressing. Pressing into the space behind the homeless
shelter. Pressing up to the base of the building.

Pressing over and
on top of one another.

It was like
watching ants swarm up an anthill. The zombie in blue jeans was probably at
the bottom, supporting others who came after, who in turn supported still
others.

“Dorcas…,” said
Ken, staring transfixed at the boiling mass of bodies that was rising ever
closer to the top of their momentary safe haven.

“Already on it,”
she shouted. She ran quickly around the perimeter of the roof, clutching her
injured arm but betraying no sign of pain.

Adrenaline is a
wonderful thing, Ken thought. He suspected he would drop dead at any moment.
If he got far enough to enjoy that luxury.

“They’re
everywhere,” said Dorcas. “Not as close as here, but moving up.”

The zombies at the
base of the storage building were ten feet away from reaching the roof. Now
nine feet.

Ken looked around.
The roof was unbroken. No way to get inside and take cover. No weapons.

He looked over the
side. The things were seven feet away. Bubbling ever closer to their goal.

What the hell is
happening?
Why
?

No answers.
Never
any answers.

Ken thought for a
moment about trying to hit a few heads with the ladder; maybe that would start
a chain reaction of crazy that would stop the threat. But he discarded the idea
as soon as it came. There was no way that dropping a
less
stable zombie
into that mix would even be noticed, any more than the ocean would notice
someone pissing in it.

Five feet away.
The ones at the top reached for the roof before being buried under the next
wave of zombies. Their fingers missed the lip of the roof, but not by much.

Ken ran back to the
ladder. It was an extension ladder, opened up to a length of probably twenty
feet, but it looked like it could be opened out another four or five feet. He
hoped it would be enough.

He pushed the
ladder out. Over the edge of the roof opposite the one they had climbed up on.

Fingers reached for
it. Came up empty.

He kept reeling the
ladder out. It touched the top of the chain-link fence surrounding the shelter
property. He kept pushing it, using the fence for stability as he shoved the
ladder up and over.

It ended about five
feet short.

Five feet before
touching the lip of the freeway just above and to the side of them. Ken pushed
the leading edge of the ladder forward another inch, but any farther and he
knew it would just fall off the building, teeter on the fence for a moment,
then plummet into the horde below.

Just like they
would fall if they tried to get out on the ladder. It would tip over into the
zombies as soon as they crossed the fulcrum point of the top of the chain-link
fence.

“So much for
emergency bridging out of here,” he said.

He looked at
Dorcas. Out of ideas and not knowing what to say. Goodbye seemed trite,
seemed ridiculous in fact.

The look in her
eyes stole his thoughts. Not just strong. If he had to pick a word at that
moment he would only have come up with
holy
. This, he realized, was
what he had always pictured avenging angels looking like right before they
started kicking celestial ass.

Dorcas stepped onto
the first rung of the ladder, the only rung that still rested on the roof of
their all-too temporary sanctuary.

“I’ll anchor it,”
she said.

He shook his head.

“You’ve got
family. All I’ve got is an ex-husband who was probably banging some girl half
his age when this all went down.” She grimaced. “I hope she bit his wiener
off.”

Ken still didn’t
move.

Dorcas grabbed him
with her good hand.

“Go! Get your
family.”

Behind them, he
heard the fleshy slap of a dozen palms on the roof. The growling all around
them grew more focused, as though they knew that this was
it
.

The first zombies
pulled themselves onto the roof.

Ken moved past
Dorcas, stepping onto the ladder. But he didn’t up it, didn’t run over the
point where it crossed the chain-link fence, didn’t attempt to jump from the
end of the ladder to the edge of the freeway five feet away. He just moved a
single rung past Dorcas, then spun around, one foot planted unsteadily on the
rails on either side of the ladder.

Below him, the
zombies reached for the ladder, reached for
him
. They hissed and
growled like boiling tar in a moat.

“What are you
doing?” Dorcas shouted. “Go!”

He ignored her.
Waited. Watched.

The first zombies
pulled themselves fully erect on the roof. Looked around as though taking
stock. Spotted Dorcas. Spotted Ken.

“Come on!” he
screamed. He grabbed her good arm and yanked her toward him.

“We’ll fall!”

He didn’t answer,
just pulled her onto the ladder. It held up, supported by the roof on one side
and the chain-link fence on the other.

“As soon as we get
past the fence, we’ll tilt it,” she said, not adding the words, “and we’ll fall!”

Ken heard them
anyway.

He kept moving
forward. Crabwalking up the incline, hearing the
clank-clank-clank
of
Dorcas doing the same right at his heels. Hearing even more the zombies
growling and shrieking only a few feet below, boiling ever higher as they piled
on top of one another to get to their prey.

The fence. Almost
there.

Now Dorcas
did
say
it.
Screamed
it. “We’ll
fall
!”

“Keep going, trust
me!” shouted Ken. No time for explanations.

They reached the
fence. He put his hand over the invisible line that would quickly turn the
ladder from bridge into unbalanced teeter totter. He kept going.

Passed onto the
other side of the fence.

Teeth and madness
below.

Dorcas put her hand
over the fence.

The ladder started
to shift.

Clank
.

Ken looked back as
the ladder slammed back to the rooftop, borne down by the weight of the two
zombies fighting to crawl out after them.

“Keep moving!” he
screamed to Dorcas.

One of the zombies
fell off the ladder with a scream of rage. Two more took its place. Then
another three. The horde-organism had extended itself to the roof, and now
pushed its living pseudopodia out onto the ladder, each with its own face and
mouth and gut.

The ladder
clanked. Groaned as more and more of the mindless things pushed their way onto
it. Ken didn’t know what the ladder’s weight rating was, but doubted it was
designed for lateral use by ten – eleven, twelve – full-grown people.

He pushed forward.
The gap was ahead. Five feet. A longish jump on solid ground.

But when you were
running up an incline that was mostly made of holes, one of you concussed at
least twice over and the other one nursing a badly broken arm… impossible.

“I can’t make it,”
shouted Dorcas.

“You’ll make it.”

“I can’t hang on.”

“You won’t have
to.”

He was at the end
of the ladder. It crackled as though nervous. Something pinged and one of the
beasts clambering up its length behind them toppled off, still holding one of
the ladder rungs, and was swallowed up by the swelling host below.

Ken stood up,
balanced precariously on the last rung of the ladder. He thought a stiff
breeze might blow him off. He tried not to think of what was below.

He turned to face
Dorcas. Saw her. Saw the ten man-beasts only a few feet behind. Seven on the
other side of the fence. Three on this side.

The ladder started
to buckle.

Ken nudged himself
up onto his toes.

Tipped himself back
like a diver doing a reverse swan…

“
NO!
” Dorcas
screamed

… and fell.

Two things happened
almost at the same moment.

Ken felt his
blindly reaching hands slap against the rough concrete lip of the freeway
behind him.

And the ladder gave
out a shuddering scream and started to bend, folding over the top of the fence
like it had grown suddenly exhausted by its efforts and just needed to relax.

Dorcas screamed.
Hitched up on her knees and reached with her good arm.

Ken flipped his
toes from their position atop the last rung, jamming them under the rung, then
knifing his toes up over the top of the ladder’s support columns. The full
weight of the ladder and the occupants on this side of the fence came down on
his shins, his feet, his hands.

Ken screamed. Felt
the skin peel off his shins as the ladder pulled on him.

But the ladder
didn’t fall.

“Climb!” he shouted
through gritted teeth.

Dorcas got to her
feet, leaping across the last few feet to the end of the ladder.

The three zombies
on this side of the fence started growling louder, as though sensing that they
were in danger of losing their meal. They skittered on hands and feet across
the final yards of the ladder.

Dorcas pulled
herself one-handed up Ken’s body. Planted a foot on his leg, another fell
right into his crotch. He shouted in pain. A memory flashed through his mind:
Derek’s first year, when he had started crawling and then walking. His
favorite thing to do was crawl or walk from one end of the couch to another,
clearly enjoying the bounce of the cushions.

If Ken was sitting
on the couch, it was an even bigger treat. Like a small mountain to be
climbed. A fun obstacle for the infant.

And every time –
every
single time
– the kid crossed over, he managed to put a surprisingly hard
baby foot in Ken’s crotch.

When Hope came, Ken
joked with his wife that he was surprised his sperm count had survived the
continuing assault of Derek’s climbing trips.

He wondered if this
was going to be his last memory. His little boy slamming him in the nuts on at
least a daily basis.

There are worse
ways to go
.

And he would have
paid Dorcas back.

The back end of the
ladder, the part beyond the fence, cracked in two with a sound like a rifle
shot. The seven monsters crawling its length fell with a scream.

The three on this
side were still coming, held up by the fence and by Ken’s rapidly tearing
tendons and muscles.

Dorcas’ weight left
him.

Her voice came from
above. She sounded like an angel.

“Let go,” she
said. “I’m here, let go!”

Ken almost let his
hands relax. A move that would have been suicide since Dorcas wasn’t holding
onto him; and even if she had been, it wasn’t likely she could haul his body
weight up and over the edge of the freeway shoulder. Then he realized what she
meant.

The closest of the
three zombies still on the ladder leaped at him.

Ken relaxed his
feet.

The ladder fell
with a clang and a wet thud as the weight of two full-grown men drove it into
the pile of bodies below.

The thing that had
jumped for Ken was still in the air. Snarling. Mouth open.

Its fingers brushed
Ken’s chest.

Ken swung back in a
short arc as his feet – which had been anchoring him as much as the ladder –
let go. Just out of reach of the monster, which fell close enough that Ken
could smell its breath, dark and damp and rotten, as it fell past him and was
swallowed up in the monstrous swirl thirty feet below.

Ken swung backward
into the concrete freeway footing. His feet and legs hit hard, further
abrading the torn and lacerated flesh there.

He felt himself
slipping.

He had originally
intended to flip himself into a pull-up position, but now realized that was
going to be impossible. He didn’t have the leverage for it, since he was
essentially reaching
behind
himself at this point.

“Hold on!” he heard
Dorcas screaming.

Sure. No
problem
.

He felt numb.
Everywhere but his head, which throbbed.

Something smacked
him on the nose.

“Sorry,” said a
gruff voice. He didn’t recognize it, only realized that it
certainly
did not belong to Dorcas.

He realized that he
had been hit by a belt buckle. One of the kind that were almost the size of a
salad plate and could only be worn by ironic hipsters or deadly-serious
cowboys.

A hand grabbed his
arm, arresting his slow downward slide. The voice spoke again, sounding very
much the opposite of an ironic hipster. “Grab it, boy.”

For a moment Ken
couldn’t peel the fingers of his free hand away from the concrete. Now that he
was
supposed
to let go, he couldn’t.

Then his fingers
came away. He swore he heard a wet ripping, like the sound of Saran Wrap
pulling off itself. He swung into space for a dizzy second, his body only
anchored at one point, before managing to grab the belt.

The things below
screamed. Piled up, piled up, piled up, still looking like some huge version
of rabid ants.

Ken couldn’t
climb. He was done. All he could do was clench his hand around the well-worn
strip of leather. He couldn’t pull himself up.

He didn’t have to.

He heard a grunt,
then started to rise, pulled at a slow but steady pace. He heard Dorcas say,
“You got him?”

“Yup,” said the
unseen gruff non-hipster.

The hand that had
been holding Ken’s other hand trapped to the side of the freeway footing let
go. And another hand – larger, matching the roughness of the voice it belonged
to – wrapped itself around that hand a second later.

A third hand –
Dorcas’, he figured – grabbed him under the armpit.

And together they
hauled him up.

Ken’s bare back
scraped something metal. A moment later he could see that it was the small
fence beside the freeway. Just strips of sheet metal with reflective stickers
to warn motorists not to drive off the side of the freeway. They were sharp as
knives.

And the pain as
they bit into Ken’s back was probably the greatest feeling he had ever
experienced.

It meant he was
still alive.

They pulled him
over. Dorcas and another someone Ken still hadn’t seen. He fell full-length
to the ground, the hot pavement biting at his raw back. Smiling.

“We safe?” said
Ken.

Dorcas grinned
back. “For the moment.”

“Good.”

He meant to thank the
mysterious benefactor who had saved them, but passed out instead.